The following testimonials from human rights organizations around the world describe the impact HRDAG and Martus have made in helping prevent abuse by building object, undeniable evidence against perpetrators.

 

"I have worked with Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) at truth and reconciliation commissions in South Africa, Sierra Leone and East Timor. In all three countries I have worked closely with Dr. Patrick Ball, the Director of the Human Rights Programs at the Benetech Initiative. In all three cases the work of the HRDAG proved to be instrumental in assisting the commissions to make powerful and credible findings. Through applying rigorous and objective analysis, Dr. Ball and his team have provided remarkable insights into these conflicts. Were it not for the close examination of huge amounts of data by the statisticians and data processing experts of the HRDAG these insights would never have been revealed and understood. Our detailed understanding of the role of different factions and the impact of the conflict on women and children in the Sierra Leone conflict was drawn in large measure from the work of the HRDAG team. The same can be said in relation to East Timor. The HRDAG has added enormous value to the work of the commissions by enabling them to provide a fuller story and to make the correct findings. I have no hesitation in endorsing the work of the HRDAG."

Howard Varney
Former Chief Investigator, Truth & Reconciliation Commission for Sierra Leone Consultant, CAVR, Timor-Leste Consultant, Truth & Reconciliation Commission, South Africa

"HRDAG provided technical assistance to the Human Rights Accountability Coalition of Sri Lanka... Patrick Ball and Romesh Silva have spent a significant amount of time in Sri Lanka to analyze our data sets and have developed various graphs and charts that we have requested. The results of the preliminary analysis have led us to understand various trends and patterns of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka that were not previously known."

Francis Xavier
Executive Director
Home for Human Rights, Sri Lanka

"Quantitative analysis can be integral to the work of accountability mechanisms, such as tribunals or truth commissions. Cutting edge technology, such as the Analyzer database software under development at HRDAG, can play a critical role in arriving at such analysis.

"Statistical analysis can be an enormously powerful tool in a prosecution case or fact finding endeavor involving widespread human rights abuses. Quantitative analysis involves data collection and reporting on a larger and different scale than more common forms of human rights reporting. As a result, it can identify trends and patterns of abuses not readily apparent from narrative reporting. Such analysis can help verify the extent and distribution of alleged atrocities. This type of information has particular evidentiary benefits in that using statistical methodology can inject objectivity and counter concerns over bias and the veracity of the raw data. Also, a quantitative analysis can give a voice to thousands of victims at once without having to bring them into the courtroom.

"... [HRDAG] Analyzer is an important component of a larger effort to protect human rights; it does so by providing international and indigenous human rights advocacy organizations with the means of converting data into a hardnosed tool that can promote greater accountability."

Michael Maya
Acting Executive Director
ABA/CEELI

"We are counting on Benetech’s invaluable contribution for the technical component and information processing in the database’s development … that helps us to have a long-term vision of the future regarding perpetrators of violations and an understanding of the truth regarding [human rights] violations that occur in Colombia.

"One of the tools implemented this year is the Martus program. This implementation helps us to collect and systemize the testimonies of the actual individual victims’ human rights violations, be they individuals or members of targeted groups within affected communities."

Mons. Héctor Fabio Henao
Director
Secretariado Nacional de Pastoral Social / Cáritas Colombiana

"Given the serious situation of systematic human rights violations in Colombia, the work that we are undertaking [using HRDAG] will be of vital importance in the search for and guarantee of human rights in the country."

Dr. Carlos A. Marín R.
The Colombian Commission of Jurists

"Benetech has pioneered the development of encrypted human rights reporting software that standardizes the reporting of human rights abuses and protects the sources of such reporting. … There is no other organization in the world doing this kind of work, which is vital in the struggle for the protection of human rights and the pursuit of justice."

Dr. Todd Landman
Human Rights Centre
University of Essex